Wise move, NBA television executives, choosing to pull Wednesday night’s Lakers at Rockets game off the national broadcast (not that the Spurs/Mavs game that replaced turned out to be a thriller). There is no Kobe Bryant and the “Dwight Howard reunion” drama had played itself out long ago.

This was simply another mid-season NBA game where the more talented, deeper team won handily — but it would never seem to end thanks to a few minutes of hack-a-Howard.

Didn’t matter, the Rockets blew the game open in the third quarter and won 113-99 behind 38 points from James Harden. Howard finished with 20 points and 13 boards.

For the Lakers, the pain continues — after Tuesday night’s loss Nick Young said the Lakers’ locker room felt like a “funeral.” I’m not sure what feels worse but the Lakers are headed there — they have dropped nine of 10 (losing those games by an average of almost 14 points) and they are about to head out on their annual Grammy road trip and eight of their next nine are road games. Kobe will not be back for that stretch. Things look pretty bleak, and while being bad to get a better draft pick may be the right thing to do on paper it is no fun for the team going through it.

Los Angeles led in this one early, simply by outworking the Rockets in the paint. Pau Gasol hit three of his first four (and had 15 in the first half), Robert Sacre and Jordan Hill being physical with Howard. Then in the second quarter Nick Young had eight points (he finished the night with 25), Jodie Meeks added 7 points (21 on the night) and the Lakers were up five at the half.

Part of that was the Rockets just did not play good defense — they are an inconsistent team and it showed on that end. James Harden got beaten off the dribble by Kendall Marshall, and there was no defensive rotation to cover the basket.

The third quarter was completely different.

James Harden exploded for 17 points on 7-of-10 shooting, the Rockets were more aggressive on defense forcing seven turnovers and turning them into easy transition buckets. The Lakers shot just 33 percent in the quarter.

Houston won the third quarter 33-15. That theme continued on into the fourth and the Rockets were up 20 and in control.

So with just under five minutes left Mike D’Antoni ordered “hack-a-Howard” and at first it worked. Howard started 2-of-6 from the line and the Lakers closed the gap to 11. But then the Lakers just started missing their chances and Howard ended up 7-of-16 (he hit five of the last 10) and the Lakers couldn’t close the gap.

In the end the Lakers started to expose the Rockets flaws, but with all the injuries this roster can’t sustain that level of play against a good team when it is focused. And the Rockets got focused and won.

This means Motiejunas can’t sign with the Nets, who signed him to the original offer sheet, for one year.

I bet it also means Motiejunas and Houston have agreed to a new contract. Otherwise, why release him from the offer sheet? The Rockets would be giving up a tremendous amount of leverage out of the goodness of their hearts – unless this is just a prelude to a new deal with Houston.

DeMar DeRozan is having one of those seasons for the No. 2 team in the Eastern Conference, the Toronto Raptors. During Thursday night’s win over the Minnesota Timberwolves, 124-110, DeRozan scored 27 points while adding eight rebounds, five assists, and shooting a whopping 13 free throws.

DeRozan also sealed the victory in the final minute with a huge put back dunk.

The Raptors led by 9 points with a minute left as they were inbounding the ball. A long pass from the baseline to a streaking DeMarre Carroll resulted in a blocked layup, but DeRozan was there to clean up the mess.

Here’s what you missed Thursday around the NBA while you were drinking homemade glow-in-the-dark beer with jellyfish genes in it (no, you try it first, I insist)…
1) Don’t play Memphis in a close game, they just find a way to win. Last week, when Mike Conley went down with a back injury and was going to miss six weeks (give or take), we questioned if Memphis could keep their heads above water. They promptly went out and lost to a very good Toronto team.

Since then they have won five in a row, capped by an impressive 88-86 win over Portland Tuesday. Impressive because:

• Memphis is now 12-0 in games that were within 3 points in the final minute. You get in a close game with Memphis, you lose. (Statistically, we know some of that is luck, that there will be some regression to the mean, but that stat has propelled a team has been outscored by nine points this season, one that should be 12-12, to the 16-8 record they have.)

• Memphis trailed Portland 79-68 with less than five minutes to go, and still won.

• Marc Gasol had 36 points and has been an absolute beast since Conley went down, doing whatever it takes to win.

• Toney Douglas — a guy the Grizzlies just picked up off the street this week, basically — comes in and is clutch down the stretch for them, including hitting the game-winning free throws with 0.5 seconds left (Damian Lillard tried to argue the call, to no avail).

The schedule gets tough for Memphis the next couple of weeks — Golden State, home-and-home with Cleveland, then Boston and Utah looming not long after — but do not doubt the Grizzlies. No team is as resilient as this bunch.

2) Bulls prove Spurs aren’t perfect on the road. It was bound to happen, the San Antonio Spurs were 13-0 on the road, they were going to stumble at some point. That point turned out to be Thursday night in Chicago, where the Spurs came out of the gate like they went out and had a big pregame meal of Lou Malnati’s pizza — 32 points on 30.6 percent shooting in the first half for San Antonio. The Spurs didn’t defend poorly, for example Kawhi Leonard held Jimmy Butler to no first-half points — in fact, midway through the first quarter Taj Gibson and Robin Lopez had scored almost all the Bulls’ buckets — but the San Antonio offense was dreadful. Throw a little credit to the Chicago defense if you want, but this was more San Antonio stumbling than a Chicago return to the Thibodeau era.

The Bulls were up 12 at the half and were able to hang on despite a strong second 24 minutes from Leonard (17 of his 24 came in the second half) and get the win. Dwyane Wade had 20 points and hit a couple of key buckets late to stabilize Chicago. For a Bulls team that is going to be in a playoff battle all season — they are the seven seed right now, one game ahead of the Pacers in ninth — these kinds of wins at home can prove huge.

3) What is it with Minnesota and second half? On the road, the Minnesota Timberwolves had played the Toronto Raptors even for the first 24 minutes — it was 59-59 at the half. And yet, there was a sense of dread for Timberwolves fans because all season their young team has just come apart in the third quarter — and then Toronto opened the second half on an 11-2 run. Minnesota, to their credit, crawls back into it, but midway through the fourth the Raptors go on a 17-4 run sparked by Kyle Lowry and DeMar DeRozan, and the Raptors pull away for the 124-110 win. The Timberwolves lost another game because they can’t defend well.

Minnesota shows flashes of the kind of brilliance that has everyone thinking they might be a contender in a few years. But we all expected too much too soon from this group. Those impressive stretches are followed by ones where they play like a young team, they don’t defend well, and they throw those good efforts away. Not that they were going to beat a good Toronto team on the road, but the Timberwolves can be frustrating to watch. Patience is hard, and Minnesota fans are being asked to show a lot of it. We can debate if it’s time to bring Ricky Rubio off the bench and let Kris Dunn sink or swim, but that’s not the core problem. Ultimately, the Timberwolves are young and playing like it. They don’t know how and aren’t putting in the effort to defend well yet. Karl-Anthony Towns, Andrew Wiggins, Zach LaVine, they can be the core of a contender eventually, but there is a lot of learning to do along the way. Tom Thibodeau can teach them. But it’s going to require patience.